UNESCO’s project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’: Iraqi and Syrian opinion on heritage reconstruction after the Islamic State

ABSTRACT

Following the devastation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by the Islamic State (IS), UNESCO launched a project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’. This article critically reflects on this UNESCO-led project, drawing on 47 interviews with Syrians and Iraqis, as well as documenting the implications of UNESCO’s efforts in earlier (post-)conflict heritage reconstruction projects in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Mali. Specifically, this article focuses on two sites in Mosul, both deliberately destroyed by the IS and both nominated by UNESCO for reconstruction. The data analysed reveal that heritage reconstruction projects, especially in complex (post-)conflict environments such as Iraq, requires ongoing, nuanced and careful engagement with local populations to succeed. Failure to do so leaves both local people and their heritage sites vulnerable to renewed attacks and therefore ultimately undermines UNESCO’s broader mission to foster peace.

KEYWORDS:

• Iraq
• heritage
• UNESCO
• Islamic State (IS)
• reconstruction
• Mosul

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the hard work and enthusiasm of several colleagues who helped collate some of the materials presented and analysed in this article: Ahmed Hassin, Sofya Shahab, Taghreed Jamal Al-Deen and Antonio Zarandona. We also acknowledge the insightful comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers and the editor of this journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See: ‘World Heritage Centre: Success Stories.’ UNESCO, Accessed 4 December. https://whc.unesco.org/en/107/.

2. See: ‘Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley.’ UNESCO, Accessed 4 December. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/208.

3. The interviews were collected in accordance with the ethical standards of the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee, Australia. Informed consent was obtained for all participants, who remain anonymous and non-identifiable.

4. See: ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul.’ Accessed 6 November. https://en.unesco.org/projects/the-spirit-of-mosul.

5. The Al-Askari mosque and shrine is a significant Shia religious and historical site in Samarra, Iraq. In 2006, and again in 2007, Al-Qaeda in Iraq bombed the site, unleashing a wave of sectarian violence (Isakhan 2013). From 2008, UNESCO led a project sponsored by the Iraqi Government and the European Union to rehabilitate and reconstruct the site over a 4-year period (UNESCO 2011). The project used hundreds of local Iraqi contractors to do much of the clearing and reconstruction work. More importantly, UNESCO is said to have regularly consulted with local civil society actors and with religious leaders who were regularly briefed on progress (Ghaidan 2008). By April 2009, the mosque had been partially rebuilt and was reopened to visitors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Isakhan

Benjamin Isakhan is an associate professor of Politics and Policy Studies and founding director of Polis, a research network for Politics and International Relations in the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University, Australia. He is also Adjunct Senior Research Associate, Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Lynn Meskell

Lynn Meskell is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and founding editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology. Her new book, A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace (2018, OUP New York), reveals UNESCO’s early forays into a one-world archaeology and its later commitments to global heritage. Her new fieldwork explores monumental regimes of research and preservation around World Heritage sites in India and how diverse actors and agencies address the needs of living communities.